PROJECT SCOPE
• Topic: Autonomous Vehicles (AVs)
• Timeline: June 2025 - December 2025
• Duration: 6 Months
• Team: 3 Researchers
• My Role: UX Researcher & Interviewer
• Methodology: Surveys, User Interviews, User Personas, Customer Journey Mapping, Frequency Matrix, Gantt Chart, SWOT Analysis
• Tools: Zoom, Google Forms, Figma
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
• Autonomous vehicles (AVs) have certainly become a major topic over the past several years.
• As a result, my team and I wanted to dive deeper into AVs, more specifically how users feel and engage with autonomous vehicles in their day-to-day lives.
• The purpose of our study was not to promote the idea that AVs are inherently good or bad for society, but rather to identify concerns that many individuals might have while pinpointing trends and patterns across various methods.
WHAT WAS THE PROBLEM?
• Although AVs have been around for several years now, the media attention that they've been receiving is definitely a recent development.
• Therefore, sourcing candidates for our study came with it's own set of issues.
• For example, finding participants who have had direct experience using AVs was no easy task, as the market tends to be relatively niche at the moment.
HOW MIGHT WE. . .
• Establish ways to recruit candidates for the survey and interview portion of our research study?
GANTT CHART
• Before formally beginning our study, my team and I wanted to outline the direction of research.
• This made conducting our initial round of surveys much clearer, as we had a flexible diagram that guided us during our study.
• Considering that we were focusing on an area of research that is relatively new, it was paramount that we maintain as much structure as possible.
SURVEYS
• To start off our study, we began surveying participants regarding their views and opinions on AVs.
• We decided to divide our user base into two distinct groups:
• Group 1 (Those who have direct experience using an autonomous vehicle)
• Group 2 (Those who have not had direct experience with an autonomous vehicles but are interested in learning more about them)
• However, this method came with unique challenges, as we wanted to maintain a balanced user base with a fair amount of participants in both groups.
• Due to the fact that AVs are still and up-and-coming product by most standards, the people who regularly utilize them tend to come from wealthier backgrounds and reside in urban centers predominantly.
USER PERSONAS
• A major goal for our study was to understand the needs, opinions, and concerns of our users.
• Our user personas allowed us to gain a great deal of insight into what our average user was feeling and helped us pinpoint the consensus.
• For example, our user personas highlighted the skepticism that many of our users were reporting in terms of AVs.
• In addition, they also addresses the trend that was common in our data, which was that our average participant questioned the reliability of AVs.
CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAPPING
• My team and I were deeply fascinated by the expectations that our participants were setting when it came to the topic of AVs.
• More often than not, the questions that we were posing were ones that many hadn't given too much consideration.
• For example, their feelings of safety in relation to AVs versus standard cars.
• To compliment our user personas, we sought to address how our users might go about engaging with or even purchasing an AV for the first time.
FREQUENCY MATRIX
• The participants whom we sampled had a plethora of different insights that were revealed during the survey and interview portions, which each revealing various priorities.
• This matrix let us know that our users are most concerned about passenger safety, ease of use, as well as making sure that brands are trustworthy and have transparent practices for their AVs.
• Similar to that, our participants ultimately want a product that doesn't compromise their safety and offers consistency for their user experience.
SWOT ANALYSIS
• Conducting a SWOT Analysis was the ideal way to organize the insights that we gathered and take the most balanced and nuanced approach.
• While doing our research, we noticed a myriad of different perspectives that our survey and interview participants were shedding light on.
• Therefore, a SWOT Analysis revealed the aspects that our users valued, such as convenience with the products and the concerns that they had, such as questioning how AVs would perform on complex routes or terrain.
USER INTERVIEWS
• As an extension of our survey methodology, we sought to conduct in-depth interviews with participants to evaluate their opinions and concerns, while also seeing if they line up with our previous data.
• The interview section was more revealing than the surveys because it allowed our users to elaborate on the questions and describe their attitudes in depth.
• Similar to the survey that we worked on, we divided our users into two distinct groups, so that we could make sure that both sides are represented fairly in the data.
USER INTERVIEW FINDINGS
• The results revealed that our user base found AVs to be quite fascinating in contrast to standard cars.
• On the other hand, many expressed deep concerns about their safety, as many have seen negative material related to AVs in the media.
• Also, many of our users brought up that, while AVs are intriguing in theory, they question how well they would perform on congested roads or in unmarked areas.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
• Conducting research on how individuals feel in relation to autonomous vehicles was quite intriguing, but also came with unique challenges than if we had chosen a product that's more ubiquitous.
• Due to the rise in media attention that AVs have gained in recent years, finding participants who have strong opinions about the subject wasn't too complex.
• Despite this, finding participants who have direct experience with AVs was more difficult because of how niche the market is at the moment.
• Many participants' attitudes were motivated by their availability heuristic, as they typically encounter AV coverage that is negative.
